“I look forward to working closely with the community to further its mission of not only creating the best Linux distribution in the world, but also actively engaging with the broader open source communities around the world," said Alan Clark in the press release.

"As a member of the openSUSE community, and Senior Manager and Strategic Advisor for Industry Initiatives at Novell, Clark's leadership has been particularly notable in driving the initial steps toward setting up an openSUSE foundation," Novell says in their announcement.

Clark served as a member of the Linux Foundation board of directors, and currently is the chair of the Linux Foundation Vendor Advisory Council. He served as a founding director for non-profits such as blade.org, power.org and more. In addition, he remains active numerous open source projects to include Linux Standard Base, OpenDocument Format, Open Source For America, DMTF, Cloud Security Alliance and more.

Clark's responsibilities will include helping setup an openSUSE foundation, as well as leading the development and advancement of the openSUSE project.